Tag: projection

Cainists couldn’t survive without a scapegoat—someone or something on whom he dumps his faults and inadequacies. Without a scapegoat, he would need to accept responsibility for his behavior, and he will never do that.

As mentioned before, it’s vitally important that Cain views himself as the good guy dressed in white and the Enabler as the bad seed dressed in black. Scapegoating, then, is equal to the funny line, “The devil made me do it” used in the seventies by the late comedian and actor Clerow Wilson, Jr., known professionally as Flip Wilson. The line became a national catch phrase to deny accountability.

By all means scapegoating is anything but funny. It’s painful.

Projection and scapegoating, although unfair, let cainists disassociate from feelings of failure and shame. He’s brilliant, an Einstein. The Enabler is dumb, a sucker.

He kicks off a smear campaign to make her look appalling or slothful so he can look awesome and ambitious. He’ll suck up to authority even though he holds intense rage toward all authority to project a false image to hide his real feelings. And when he maligns someone, he cleverly merges humor into his projection to make it seem palatable or publicly acceptable.

Cain’s scapegoats include everything from loved ones to business associates, from his car to the weather—anything that shifts the blame beyond himself. For example, when condo resident, Angela, scratched the paint off the wall with her fingernail and accused the contractor, Mason, of applying only one coat of paint, he adamantly denied it, blaming the problem on defective paint. In other words, the subnormal paint was the scapegoat for his inaction.

It’s sad that families and organizations throw cherished members under the bus, but it’s done all the time in dysfunctional systems, such as, alcoholic homes and cainistic families and organizations.

It might take the Enabler years to understand that she was set up to deflect Cain’s inauthentic, deceitful behavior so he can look better than Jesus Christ himself. In fact, some Enablers go to their graves feeling like complete failures when they did nothing wrong.

According to psychiatrist M. Scott Peck, scapegoating is “the genesis of human evil.”

Remember the psychological game of projection discussed earlier? Specifically, that Cain projects his character flaws onto others in an effort to dump them? For decades a woman named Piper was conditioned to believe that Cain’s character defects were her flaws.

Due to her overweight, she was judged abnormal, lazy and lacking in will power. Unfortunately, society as a whole passes these same judgments about obesity, but Cain illuminated Piper’s imperfections to deflect his own shortcomings.

She recalls how strenuous and exhausting it was as a morbidly overweight child to walk eight blocks uphill to school. About midway she struggled for the next lungful of air. When she was very young, she simply sat down on the grass or sidewalk for a spell to catch her breath. Because Cain was interested in one agenda——his own—with no empathy for her, he projected his impatience, calling Piper lazy and deciding that she only wanted to play.

These myths went unquestioned, perpetuated within the family. Yes indeed. Piper was lazy. She just liked to have fun. No one ever considered that she was, in fact, carrying two people uphill every day due to her size. She wasn’t lazy, she was out of breath. The truth was, Cain didn’t like to be inconvenienced—ever. “But I grew up feeling as if I had to strive twice as hard as anyone else to verify that I wasn’t lazy,” explained Piper. Now, as an older adult suffering many health issues, she says it makes sense why her body wore out at an earlier age.

About a decade ago, while she worked tirelessly on a project, her mother announced emphatically, “You certainly aren’t lazy!”

“It seemed to be an original awareness for her,” explained Piper. “I was momentarily astounded, knowing how hard I worked on everything all my life. But finally, she felt vindicated because her mother had seen the real Piper. This mother had automatically accepted Cain’s opinions and impatience without ever editing them for accuracy. Piper had been viewed by her family as lazy for half a century simply because a cainist had little tolerance for anyone but himself and projected his limitations onto Piper.

All of which sets up the Enabler for further cainistic connections and abuse. This abuse is familiar, therefore, she draws the same exploitation into her life time and again. And it isn’t just laziness that’s projected. It’s any affirmative attribute which threatens Cain’s weak ego.

If she’s empathetic, then he announces that she’s too dramatic; if she’s adventurous, then she’s unstable and doesn’t comprehend risks; if she’s spiritual, then she’s gullible; if she’s smart, she isn’t nearly as smart as he is. Piper remembered feeling absolutely dumb all through school and was shocked when she went to college and landed on Dean’s list and received multiple compliments from professors about the term papers she wrote.

If Cain can’t compete with a quality or talent, such as being inventive or artistic in a certain area, then he dramatizes his shortage. Now, the Enabler’s creativity is nothing compared to Cain’s unimaginative side. His inability usurps her abilities. It’s astounding how many ways he can nullify the Enabler to regain center stage.

She must relentlessly insert a question mark behind everything he says about her and to her. Otherwise, she will breathe life into his self-absorbed, trumped-up proclamations, giving him the power of projection to devastate the very fabric of her existence.